Friends: The One Where Dave Has a Dream

Dave decides he can save Europe from tyranny

As Dave stood by Pegasus Bridge for the ceremony of remembrance, he contemplated the sacrifices others had made so that he could go to Normandy as the leader of a free, prosperous nation.

Yes, Nick Clegg had paid the ultimate price. He had laid down his own career so that Dave could spend five years in No 10. Though the result of the Newark by-election would not be announced for a few hours, the exit polls were unequivocal. The Conservatives would win, with Ukip second. Meanwhile, Nick would be sixth. In the going down of the Lib Dem vote and in the morning papers, Dave would remember him.

Labour’s situation was just as desperate. They’d held Newark from 1997 to 2001. Now, they could manage no better than third, with a lower share of the vote than in 2010.

Dave wasn’t surprised. Central Office had conducted a series of ultra-super-secret polls, analysing voters’ feelings about Ed Miliband and Ed Balls. They’d wanted to know if Labour’s electoral prospects would be improved if any other, hypothetical duos were leading them.

It was no surprise that the public thought such experienced hands as Douglas Alexander and Andy Burnham, or the rising stars Chuka Umunna and Tristram Hunt were perceived as both “more competent” and “less mind-bogglingly weird” than the two Eds. Yet no one expected the sheer depths to which the Labour leadership had plunged.

Miliband and Balls were considered less suitable for government than Ant and Dec, Posh and Becks, and Sooty and Sweep. Yes, the tide of history was moving in Dave’s direction, just as it had moved for the Allies on D-Day. A great wave of destiny was picking up his electoral landing craft and sweeping him up to the very head of the political beach. Or something like that.

Dave thought for a moment about the power of words. He had to find a tip-top metaphor the public could grasp like… like the sort of thing people wanted to grasp: an ice-cream cone, perhaps, or a winning lottery ticket. Perhaps Boris could come up with something.

For the first time in his political life, Dave had a sense of “the vision thing”. People accused him of lacking inspiration. He was pretty good at seeming like an affable, reasonably competent sort of chap. But he’d never had a dream that would inspire the average man or woman in the street.

Now, though, he was on to something. Three times in the past, Tory prime ministers had delivered an entire continent from the yoke of tyranny. Lord Liverpool had saved Europe from Napoleon. Churchill had saved Europe from Hitler. Now he, Dave, would save Europe from Juncker.

He would stand up before the British people and say, “I won’t allow this federalist nonentity from Luxembourg to condemn us to standardised bananas and vast hordes of invading Bulgarians. I will argue for a marginally reformed Europe that still lets Germany call the shots, while giving us a few meaningless opt-outs that the French don’t object to.”